Faculty Profiles

Susan Fletcher French

Susan French taught Property, Wills and Trusts, and Common Interest Communities for many years. Her areas of expertise include the law of wills, trusts, future interests, servitudes (easements and covenants) and common interest communities.

After graduating from law school where she was articles editor of the Washington Law Review, Professor French practiced law in Seattle, Washington, and then joined the UC Davis law faculty in 1975. She was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School in 1980, the UCLA School of Law in 1988-89, Harvard Law School in 1990, Duke Law School in 2001 and 2007, and the University of North Carolina in 2005. She spent a sabbatical year at the University of Chile in Santiago during 1982-83 and part of a sabbatical leave at the University of Sydney Faculty of Law in 2002.

Professor French was the Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law, Third, Property (Servitudes) (2000). She served as an adviser to the Restatement of the Law, Third, Property (Donative Transfers), and she has advised the California Law Revision Commission on revision of laws relating to common-interest developments and the Probate Code. She is co-author of Cases and Texts on Property (with Gerald Korngold, 6th ed. 2015), and Community Association Law (with Hyatt, 2d ed. 2008). Professor French is also the author of A California Companion for the Course in Wills, Trusts and Estates.